How can innovative/creative leaders survive or even excel in todays's complex and challenging military environment?

By taking the initiative and not waiting for the bureaucracy to catch up -- and by networking with diverse individuals across the services and in the civilian world.

Couple direct examples of this in action:

Chief of Naval Operations Rapid Innovation Cell:  the CNO created a group of 15 junior officers and enlisted to propose and execute projects that the traditional science and tech community was not looking at.  He has empowered us to break some china and look at new tech, policies and relationship building.  We travel the country looking at innovative companies, bringing best practices and tech back to the Navy.

Two success stories:

We got the 4-star commander of US Pacific Fleet to wear a pair of Google Glass at a recent widely attended event -- only enterprise entity that Google has given access too.  All because of a fired up JO

We put a 3D printer on a deployed warship for experiementation and testing.  The sailors love it.

Extenal organizations:

The Defense Entrepreneurs Forum (defenseentrepreneurs.org) is a marketplace for creative Defense innovators to meet and share ideas.  We have numerous events, with an annual nationwide gathering.  Last year we drew 100+ people in the midst of sequenstration who paid their own way and took leave to interact with their peers across the services.  Many said it was the best event they had ever been to.

You have to take action on an idea, find allies, and push push push until it gets accepted -- and often times you have to do it on your own, outside of traditional lifelines.  Find your passion, give yourself permission to take action, and then actually follow through!

The rules are there -- but you can find ways to bend them and adapt them to your own purposes.